


Collared

by quiettimenotriottime



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alpha Bucky Barnes, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Barebacking, Bonding, Collars, Doggy Style, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Steve Rogers, Oral Sex, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Rimming, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2018-12-24 14:32:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12014766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiettimenotriottime/pseuds/quiettimenotriottime
Summary: Steve finds the box wedged under the mattress with a couple of dirty mags and a box of cigarettes. He’s not snooping- he’s not- it’s just, Bucky’s been acting awful suspicious lately and three nights ago when he thought Steve was asleep he snuck home with something in his jacket pocket and hid it right here, between the mattress and the wooden slats of the bedframe.





	1. Chapter 1

Steve finds the box wedged under the mattress with a couple of dirty mags and a box of cigarettes. He’s not snooping- he’s _not_ \- it’s just, Bucky’s been acting awful suspicious lately and three nights ago when he thought Steve was asleep he snuck home with something in his jacket pocket and hid it right here, between the mattress and the wooden slats of the bedframe.

Bucky, as per usual, left for the docks hours ago and the apartment is silent but for the sounds of the television coming through from next door and the distant wail of a baby somewhere far below. 

Steve takes the box into the kitchen and sets it on the counter. It’s a jewellery box. He's seen them in the windows of the department stores on main street, lined in velvet and satin, royal blue and blood red and purple. 

He pours himself some cereal and eats it, eyeing the box as if it might grow teeth and attack him if he turns his back on it.

He considers the facts. Bucky’s bought, stolen or found a piece of jewellery and hidden it. Why? Maybe he plans to pawn it. Maybe he did steal it and he’s guilty about it. Or maybe it’s a surprise for Steve.

He picks up the box, rattles it around a little. It makes a faint clunking sound; not empty, then. Something’s inside.

Box this size, there’s maybe three possibilities for what it could be. A necklace, maybe. A bracelet, at a pinch. Or a bonding collar. Steve’s seen those in the store windows too: soft, supple leather gleaming under the electric lights.

A fine tremor runs up his spine, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

They’d talked about it, in the darkness of the night, where everything seems slightly unreal and distant. A real house, with a garden where they could grow vegetables and flowers and fruit trees, and a big, airy studio with plenty of natural light for Steve to draw by. Maybe a couple of children running around, getting underfoot.

It had always seemed like an impossible dream, vanishing like smoke in the morning. That dream hovers before Steve now: fragile, intangible, like if he breathes on it too hard it might dissolve into thin air.

That bonding collar is Schrodinger’s cat: it might be sitting inside that box waiting for him, or it might not.

Steve could just put the box right back where he found it; that way the dream will be safe, nestled inside the box. The prospect is tempting. But.

_But._

There’s a chance that the cat is alive and well, and just waiting for him, if only Steve can work up the courage to just reach out and pop it open, like _so_ -

The collar sits on a bed of cornflower blue satin. It’s leather and perfect, not as fancy as some of the ones in the shops, but still the most beautiful thing Steve’s ever seen. Must have cost a fortune, three months’ salary at _least_ ; Bucky must have been planning this for a long time. There’s a clear panel at the front, meant to show off an alpha’s claim.

Steve strokes the pads of his fingers over his throat where the mark would go. He plucks the collar out of the box and slides the leather tongue out of the buckle, fits it around his own neck with shaking hands, does the clasp up tight enough that it won’t slide around.

He shudders and lets his eyes fall to half mast, tension he hadn’t even known he’d been holding seeping out of him.

An overwhelming sense of rightness settles over him. It feels like a Hold, only softer, looser: a brand of ownership declaring plainly that Steve is off-limits.

(Later, he puts the collar back where he found it. He can be patient.)

Later still, months later, Steve’s almost forgotten about the collar when Bucky receives a draft letter in the mail and his eyes go shuttered and sad. Bucky’s no coward, but there’s Steve’s health to consider. 

Bucky starts making plans for Steve go stay with his Ma. Steve starts dousing himself in Bucky’s cologne and sneaking out to recruitment centres, because he’ll be damned if he lets Bucky go off to war without him. When Bucky finds out he yells fit to wake the dead. Then crushes Steve in his arms, shaking like a leaf.

“I can’t lose you, Stevie," he moans. "I _can’t."_

At the Stark Expo, a man named Dr Erskine finally gives Steve a chance. Outside the recruitment centre, Bucky paces restlessly, worried beyond belief. When Steve comes back out, he hauls him up by the collar like a naughty pup and drags him into the nearest alleyway, crowding him against the wall.

“Really, Steve? On my last night?”

“I had to, Buck.”

Bucky whines low in his throat and buries his face in Steve’s neck. “I know. No one’s ever gonna be able to hold you down, least of all me.”

“I’m sorry.”

Bucky pulls back and takes his face in his hands. “Just promise me one thing. Promise me you won’t be a damn fool and call it heroism. You keep yourself safe for me, because as soon as this war’s over we’re going to get our own house and have a couple of kids, just like we always said. Promise me, Steve.”

Steve tilts his chin up, defiant. “Only if you promise the same thing.”

Bucky laughs, a little choked, a little broken, and gathers Steve up in his arms like so much bunting. Steve pretends he doesn’t feel the tell-tale dampness on his neck.

Later, they kiss in the doorway to their apartment. Bucky sweeps him off his feet and carries him over the threshold, and if it makes Steve’s breath catch in his throat and his knees go a little weak, no-one has to know.

Bucky sets him gently down on their bed and reaches under the mattress for the collar in its wooden box. He goes shy, suddenly; quiet, that big mouth falling shut as he runs his hand bashfully through his hair.

“Been wanting to give this to you for a while, but the timing never seemed right,” he says, soft.

He presses the box into Steve’s hands and folds his fingers over it.

Steve strokes the wood for a moment, feeling the grains under the pads of his fingers. He pops the box open, and there’s the collar, nestled in its blue silk.

Steve stares at it for a long time. He’s been silent for so long that Bucky starts to fidget.

“Steve,” he says, unsure.

Steve looks up at him, into that dear familiar face, and nods.

He lets Bucky scent him, nosing over the glands at his throat. He tilts his head back to give Bucky better access and suckles on Bucky’s wrist while Bucky mouths at his neck, huffing in the scent of him through parted lips, his breath warm and damp on Steve’s skin. Then Bucky lays him out on the bed real gentle and kisses down his neck, over his clavicle, pulls his shirt over his head and sucks one of his nipples into his mouth.

Steve sighs, scratching lightly at Bucky’s scalp. He’d been expecting quick and dirty, but Bucky is careful with him. He always is, even when Steve maybe wishes he wouldn’t be.

He cups the back of Bucky’s neck with one hand, encouraging, guiding. Bucky begins to purr, low in his throat, the vibrations trembling through Steve’s chest and making him squirm. Steve rumbles an answering purr as Bucky licks down his chest, shoving his tongue into Steve’s navel in a way that makes Steve’s toes curl. He can feel his hole go warm and loose, soaking the back of his underwear and making it stick to his skin.

He spreads his legs, moaning as Bucky unzips him and tugs his pants and underwear down.

A tremor goes through his left thigh as Bucky gazes down at him with irises swallowed whole by the back of his pupils. His fingers itch to cover himself, suddenly shy. Bucky strokes his hair, his cheek, bends over to kiss him softly on the mouth.

Bucky sits back and looks at him with glittering eyes, then bends down and swallows him whole. Steve cries out and curls his body over Bucky’s head, his legs twisting in the sheets, as Bucky does that thing with his tongue that makes his hips jack-knife off the bed.

Bucky pushes him down with one hand, easy as anything, and presses his tongue to Steve’s sensitive glans. His fingers find where Steve’s already wet for him and sink in, two pressing up towards his belly button in a way that makes Steve hump up into his mouth. 

Bucky gets him ready on three fingers, slow, slower than he needs to with how slick Steve is. Then he pulls Steve’s buttocks apart and shoves his face between them.

If Steve hadn’t already gotten a hand around the base of his dick, he would have come immediately.

Bucky licks shallowly at his hole like a cat licking up cream, soft and maddening. Steve tries to get some leverage to ride his face but Bucky’s got him pinned like a butterfly under a glass.

Bucky lets off to glare at him from under the fall of his hair, pulled out of its careful style by Steve’s eager fingers. “If you don’t stop squirming I’m going to go and finish myself off in the bathroom and leave you alone to take care of yourself.”

Steve makes a noise like an affronted cat but goes still. Bucky smiles approvingly and disappears between Steve’s thighs once again, licking a long stripe from his tailbone to his balls.

Steve squawks in surprise as the sharp point of Bucky’s tongue breaches his body. He swears like a sailor, digging his heel into the meat of Bucky’s shoulder.

Bucky licks him from the inside, fast and demanding where before he’d been soft and sweet. His nose presses into the soft skin behind Steve's balls as he sucks his asshole into his mouth like he’s trying to make it part ways with the rest of Steve’s body.

Steve _screams_.

Bucky slaps a hand over his mouth to stop him from waking the neighbours, but from the thumping and yelling coming from the floor below, it’s a wasted effort..

Bucky pulls off him with dark eyes and a mouth covered in slick. Steve wants to kiss him, lick his own slick from Bucky’s mouth.

Bucky kisses him like a back alley fight; fast and brutal, leaving Steve reeling and gasping for breath. He rests his cheek against Steve’s, panting “please, baby, please,” rubbing his cock into the vee of Steve’s thighs.

“Yeah, Buck, anything you want,” Steve gasps.

Bucky shucks off his pants and underwear and flips Steve over like he weighs nothing, pressing up close against his back. Steve pants into the pillow, feeling his heart beat rabbit-quick.

Bucky looms above him, slotting the head of his cock into Steve’s tight little body. He groans, a long, broken sound, and sheaths himself, all the way down past where his knot is starting to fatten up.

(Steve has to get a hand around himself again real quick or this is going to be over sooner than he'd like.)

“Bucky, oh,” he gasps, pressing his hips back.

“Wait, Stevie, wait,” Bucky pleads.

Steve looks over his shoulder and quirks an eyebrow. “What’s the matter, soldier? Stamina not up to par?”

Bucky growls and gives him a good, hard thrust for his trouble.

“Oh,” Steve gasps, high and thready. “Do that again.”

Bucky does, building up a rhythm until they’re both crying out. He grasps a handful of Steve’s short hair and pulls his head back to expose the long line of his throat.

Oh, Steve thinks deliriously, Bucky must be all the way up in his _womb_ he’s so deep.

Steve cranes his neck to kiss him, filthy and open-mouthed, and feels the expansion of Bucky’s knot, filling him up until there’s no space at all left inside him.

“Steve,” Bucky sobs. “Don’t think I can go much longer.”

“Me neither,” Steve gasps. 

Bucky tips him over onto his hands and knees. He presses Steve's face into the mattress, gentle, and starts fucking him hard and deep, dragging his thickening knot against Steve’s prostate.

Steve’s going to have bruises on his hips later but he doesn’t care because suddenly he’s coming. While he’s floating in that soft, golden place, he feels two sharp points of pain bloom at his throat.

Bucky lays them gingerly on their sides, releasing Steve’s smarting throat. He pushes the scent gland on his wrist against Steve’s mouth.

Steve bites down instinctively and his mouth fills with salty blood. He makes a disgusted noise.

Bucky chuckles, nudging Steve’s mouth with his other wrist until Steve bites that one as well.

Later, Bucky takes the collar out of the box and places it reverently around Steve’s neck, his face glowing with pride. On his wrists are two matching cuffs with identical clear panels, showing off the red, angry marks over his glands.

A feeling of smugness settles over Steve to think that at least Bucky’s going off to war with Steve’s parting kisses proudly on display, marking him irrevocably as a claimed alpha. He touches the raw, swollen skin on his throat and feels a warm tingle of satisfaction knowing Bucky’s claimed him right back.


	2. Chapter 2

Steve buys a compact and takes it with him to basic to hide the scar. The collar goes into the bottom of his suitcase, wrapped up in a dirty t-shirt where no-one will find it.

Camp Lehigh is full of posturing alphas and over-compensating betas. Fights are always breaking out behind the backs of the officers as the troops squabble over rations, water and shower time. Steve tries to stay out of it, he really does, but by the time he’s three weeks into his training he’s turned a blind eye to enough bullying that he finally has to step in and _do_ something about it.

He gets two black eyes and a fat lip for his trouble, but he manages to kick one of the bigger alphas in the balls and nearly bite someone else’s ear off before Agent Carter finds them and breaks up the fight.

“So, what was it about this time?” Agent Carter asks him with half amused, half worried, wholly fond eyes. Steve remains stubbornly silent while she hands him an ice pack to soothe the throbbing skin around his eye.

After a beat of silence, she levels him with a knowing expression. “Steve. You don’t owe these men anything.”

Steve cracks a smile. “With all due respect, ma’am, I ain’t a stoolpigeon.”

Agent Carter sighs, drumming her perfectly manicured fingernails against her notebook. “I don’t suppose it would make an ounce of difference if I asked you to try to stay out of trouble from now on?”

Steve shrugs. “I’ll try, but I don’t think it’s in my nature.”

She smiles at him, gentle and sad. “I understand. You’re not like any beta I’ve ever met, Steve. You’re kind. A good man.”

Steve considers telling her that that’s because he’s not a beta at all, but he’s not quite ready to share that information yet. Besides, he seems to be doing a good enough job of hiding it. No-one suspects a thing, save Dr Erskine, who’d been able to see right through him immediately. Upon learning that Steve wanted to continue keeping his gender a secret, he’d prescribed Steve military-grade hormone suppressants and scent neutralisers.

 Steve casts his mind back to that day, roughly four months ago:

_“You know, Steven, you don’t have to hide it.” Dr Erskine says conversationally as he shines a torch into Steve’s left eye._

_“What?” Steve says, trying not to squint._

_“Your gender. They do let unbonded omegas into the military these days, you know.”_

_Steve considers denying it, but Dr Erskine is looking at him with such kind, knowing eyes that he decides not to._

_“How can you tell?” he asks resignedly._

_"_ _Let’s just say it takes one to know one,” Dr Erskine says, winking. “Think about it. You could be an inspiration to many young omegas.”_

In the end, Steve decided to keep his secret. Although Dr Erskine is right- there are unbonded omegas in the military- they mostly work in intelligence and weapons manufacturing. Steve’s never heard of an omega fighting on the front lines.

When Steve goes in the vita-ray machine, he’s not sure what kind of fella’s gonna come out the other side. When he does emerge, dazed and dizzy and feeling spread too thin over his new, bigger frame, Agent Carter blushes and turns away politely and Mr Stark stares for a length of time that could be considered socially unacceptable. By the time Steve is cognizant enough to feel self-conscious, he’s already chased down a Nazi and seen a man die for the first time, and Stark cheerfully assures him that he needn’t worry since everyone in the room has already signed a non-disclosure agreement before going to fetch a tape measure.

“Seems like some sort of compression device might be in order here,” he says thoughtfully, sliding the tape measure under Steve’s armpits. Agent Carter stands off to the side, looking amused at Steve’s obvious discomfort but obviously ready to step in should Stark decide to get a little handsy.

Later, a man in a suit with a suspiciously greasy smile recruits Steve as the main act in what turns out to be a glorified pantomime, and he finds himself touring across America performing for military wives like a dancing monkey. He’s so busy that it escapes his notice when Bucky’s letters stop coming, and it’s only when he finds himself gallivanting across the stage for the last surviving members of Bucky’s unit that he realises.

He doesn’t even think twice about rushing into danger to save him, because the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about. When Steve finds Bucky on that table, reciting his name and number and looking like death warmed up, his heart does a guilty flip to see Bucky’s still wearing his cuffs, still faithful even though he’s been through hell and back.

Steve leads the 107th out of there, his alpha marching proudly at his side. They want to give him a medal, invite him to strategy meetings, make him out to be some kind of hero. He wants to tell them that he didn’t go behind enemy lines for his country, he did it for his alpha. Captain America doesn’t have an alpha though; Captain America is a man’s man, so he accepts the medal and goes to the meeting and tries his best to be a hero, and later in the pub in London he feels like he can finally catch a break.

Bucky looks tired, bone tired, and there’s a weight behind his eyes that wasn’t there before, like he’s seen things Steve can’t even imagine, but he’s still the most beautiful thing Steve’s seen in his entire life. Steve just wants to bundle him up in a blanket and carry him to bed, kiss both his eyelids and the full curve of his mouth, tenderly, and watch over him while he sleeps.

When Agent Carter comes into the pub in a very flattering red dress, Steve watches Bucky tense up, hostility seeping into his expression. Steve wants to tell him he needn’t worry; Agent Carter is gorgeous, but Steve isn’t interested.

“Steve, who taught you to do up a tie?” Bucky slides off his barstool and prowls behind Steve, deftly undoing his tie and unbuttoning his shirt in full view of Agent Carter, exposing the raised bonding scar on his throat that he usually covers up with foundation. Steve wonders if Bucky thinks he’s being at all subtle. Maybe he should have been a little less effusive in his praise of Agent Carter in his letters.

Agent Carter’s perfectly painted crimson lip lifts in a snarl, revealing her sharp white canines, and the air begins to thicken with the competing scents of pine, wood smoke, cherry and gun polish. Steve fights the urge to roll his eyes.

He clears his throat and narrows his eyes at Bucky over his shoulder. Bucky gazes back at him with an expression of such guileless, butter-wouldn’t-melt in-his-mouth innocence that Steve wonders if maybe he’s seeing things. But no, he’s seen that expression before on countless occasions, like the time Bucky, all of five years old, stole an entire packet of chocolate-chip cookies from his mother’s pantry and blatantly lied about it with the evidence smeared all over his face.

Steve goes to find Agent Carter later to apologise. She smiles at him, sad but accepting.

‘You have nothing to apologise for, Steve. I was the one who got my hopes up.”

That just makes Steve feel even worse. He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “I’m at fault too. Maybe I led you on a little. But Peggy, I really like you, and I really appreciate your friendship. You’re going to make some fella very happy.”

After a brief hug, they go their separate ways, Steve making his way back inside where Bucky is lying with his face on the bar.

“Alright, soldier, let’s get you to bed,” Steve says gently, slipping an arm around Bucky’s shoulders and steering him towards his own quarters. Bucky stirs and makes a little moaning sound, nuzzling against Steve’s neck. “Stevie, don’t leave me,” he whimpers, and Steve’s heart melts.

“Never, Buck.”

He deposits Bucky on his- frankly pretty comfortable- bed and strips him of his shoes, socks and pants, then crawls in after him, pulling the blankets over them both. Bucky snuggles into his side, nuzzling at the scent glands under the hinge of his jaw. Steve strokes his hair, murmuring nonsense to him until he falls asleep.

Months pass as Steve, Bucky and the Commandos steadily make their way across Europe, picking off HYDRA bases one by one. At the end of the day, Bucky is always there to lay Steve down on a bedroll in their shared tent, or in the corner of an abandoned bunker, or on the bare grass in a secluded pine grove, only the moon and the stars witness to their love-making. The Commandos are aware of the nature of their relationship- it would have been nigh on impossible to hide, living in such close-quarters as they are- but not of Steve’s true gender. It’s not that Steve doesn’t trust them- he does, with his life- but he’s heard the way they talk about omegas, and he doesn’t want it to change the way they see him.

Truth be told, it seems to bother Bucky more than it bothers Steve. He goes sullen and taciturn whenever they start up, scowling into his cup of whatever alcohol they’ve managed to get a hold of. And then if he puts up any sort of protest they start in on him. They think Bucky has an omega back home. It’s a logical assumption to come to, given the clearly visible bites on the insides of Bucky’s wrists and the letters he was sending back home every week. They like to tease him about it, regaling Steve with stories about all the times Bucky refused to come into whorehouses with them, sitting in the street outside and smoking instead. Steve can’t imagine what they think about Bucky’s relationship with himself. Perhaps they don’t think of the concept of two alphas mating as real sex at all.

One night, they’re all sitting in the common room of one of the American safe houses dotted across Europe, smoking and playing Gin Rummy, and Falsworth starts telling a story about a little omega he spent a night with back in London. It’s the typical ribald stuff, and the boys lap it up, laughing and jeering and trading swigs of the good whiskey Bucky managed to steal from the personal stash of one of the HYDRA officers in the last place they blew up. Bucky sits in the corner, scowling and staring at the floor.

“Hey, lay off it,” he says, annoyed, at one particularly lurid comment from Falsworth.

“Aw, come on Sarge, don’t be such a wet blanket,” says Dum Dum, nudging Bucky in the ribs. “What about that little dish you left back home? Time was, we couldn’t get you to shut up about him. Now you never talk about him anymore.”

Steve watches Bucky carefully, the way his shoulders tense up and he grits his teeth, the unhappy lines of him. He hasn’t been right since Azzano.

“Yeah,” Morita agrees. “What’s wrong, Sarge, trouble in paradise?”

“Well, it’s been years since we shipped out,” says Dernier reasonably. “That’s a long time for an omega to wait. They got needs you know. Maybe he moved on. Why, if I saw a cute little dolly like that wandering around all on his lonesome, I’d-”

Bucky moves too quickly for Steve to react. One moment he’s sitting next to Steve, the next he’s across the room with his hands around Dernier’s throat. “Don’t talk about him like that,” he growls, his top lip lifted in a snarl, bared canines glowing wetly in the dim smokiness of the room.

Dum Dum puts a hand on Bucky’s arm as the others try to pull him off. “He didn’t mean it Sarge. You know he’s all talk. Now let go, there’s a good lad.”

Steve comes up on Bucky’s other side, cupping his face in his hands and turning it so he can get a look at his eyes. “Hey Buck, it’s me. I’m right here. No one’s going to steal me from you.”

He ignores the sudden, sharp intake of breath from Falsworth, Dum Dum’s low whistle and Gabe’s quiet murmur of “I knew it,” and focuses on looking Bucky dead in the eye and keeping his body language relaxed and open. Bucky’s pupils are huge, a flush riding high on his cheeks, and he’s growling, a deep bass rumble that makes the hairs on the back of Steve’s neck stand up. Steve discreetly sniffs the air. Sure enough, the dark, smoky musk of rut is so thick around Bucky Steve's surprised he didn't notice it before. The suppressants he's on reduce the sensitivity of his olfactory glands by about half, but this is his mate- he should have been able to tell.

In one swift movement, Bucky releases the death-grip he has around Dernier’s neck and darts to the far corner of the room, pushing Steve behind himself and snarling threateningly.

“Lock him in one of the bedrooms until it’s over,” Dum Dum says. “We’ll look after Dernier.” Dernier moans weakly from where he’s propped up against the wall. “Oh, hush, you big baby, he barely touched you.”

Steve is relieved to see that Dum Dum is right. The skin around Dernier’s neck is red, but not bruised. Steve is glad that even out of his mind with rut, Bucky hadn’t been able to hurt his friend.

Steve herds Bucky into one of the bedrooms and locks the door behind them. This proves to be an arduous task as Bucky keeps trying to press Steve into various walls and doors to rub his scent glands on him. Steve mostly lets him, knowing it’ll help Bucky calm down some, but it makes the whole process a lot slower. Eventually Steve gets them safe inside one of the rooms and uses his superior weight to press Bucky into the bed and tie him to the bedframe with one of his own ties. He’s had plenty of experience dealing with Bucky’s ruts and he knows if he doesn’t tie him down, Bucky will spend the entirety of it obsessively checking the locks and pacing outside the room, clogging the air with his pheromones and making everyone within a five-mile radius completely miserable.

“There,” he says finally, patting Bucky’s wrist softly while Bucky glowers at him from under his long, sooty lashes. “I’m going to go get some food and water. Wait here like a good boy until I get back.”

Bucky gives him his best puppy dog eyes. “Please don’t leave me,” he whines pathetically. “What if you get lost, or hurt, or someone tries to mate with you or-”

“I can take care of myself,” says Steve firmly. “Besides, the boys don’t mean any harm. Even Dernier-”

Bucky snarls viciously at the mention of Dernier’s name, then looks sheepish when Steve looks thoroughly unimpressed with him. “I’ll only be gone a few minutes,” Steve says, unlocking the door. “Behave yourself while I’m gone.”

Bucky pouts but says nothing. Steve sighs and goes to get his pack from the common area. Dernier is sitting up and drinking some tea and honey when he gets there, looking much cheerier.

“How you doin’, pal?” Steve asks, patting him on the shoulder.

“I’ve been better,” Dernier says good-naturedly. Then he goes quiet and bashful, rubbing the back of his neck, which has turned pink. “Listen, Cap, just because you’re an omega doesn’t mean we think any less of you. That’s stuff’s all talk anyway. Stupid locker-room talk.”

 “I know.”

 When Steve gets back to the room, pack in hand, Bucky glares at him. “Took your fucking time.”

Steve rolls his eyes and pulls a canteen full of water and an MRE out of his pack. “I was barely gone five minutes,” he argues, crawling onto the bed and unscrewing the cap on the canteen. “Open your mouth.”

Bucky smirks at him. “Thought you’d never ask.”

Steve rolls his eyes and helps Bucky drink, holding the canteen carefully so he doesn’t choke. Then he spoon-feeds Bucky the MRE, not for lack of whining on Bucky’s part.

After, Bucky gets squirmy and impatient, pulling at his bonds and digging his heels into the mattress. The rut is on him strong; he’s sweating through his shirt, darkening the green of it, his eyes black and glistening in his pale face. “Steve,” he croons, dark and dangerous, a fox trying to coax a rabbit close. “Lemme touch you.”

“Sorry Buck, can’t do that,” Steve says cheerfully, putting a hand on Bucky’s forehead to check his temperature. He’s burning up. He goes to get a cloth, wetting it down with water from the canteen and laying it on Bucky’s forehead with quick, clinical hands.

Bucky shivers. “Cold.”

“I know, buddy,” Steve says sympathetically, checking Bucky’s pulse with two fingers under his jaw.

Here's the thing about Bucky: He likes taking care of people. Back in Brooklyn he always had a plaster handy to patch Steve up when he got hurt, and when Steve got sick he was there to nurse him through it every time. And it wasn't just Steve: He was just as patient and dutiful with his sisters, and among their friends he was known as the one you always went to if you were in any sort of trouble. It was only natural that that sort of predilection would extend to sex too. He's always focusing on Steve's pleasure, always itching to get his hands and mouth on him, get him wet and squirming. It's what he likes.  
  
It's not what he needs. 

What he needs is to be taken care of a little bit. Fed and watered and tended to, and then laid down in a nest of soft blankets and taken apart piece by piece.  
  
He hates it. Hates being subject to such intense scrutiny, hates being so vulnerable, all his flaws and insecurities bared before Steve’s hungry gaze. Hates to be taken care of, in any capacity, because somehow, he’s got it into his head that he’s the one s’posed to be taking care of everyone else. As an alpha, as a brother, as a Sargent. Steve thinks he understands a little bit, how the weight of the world’s expectations for you can sit so heavily on your shoulders that you can’t breathe with it sometimes.

“Steeeeeve,” Bucky whines. “You gotta let me. Just wanna taste you. Get my mouth on you a little. Bet you’re already wet for me.”

Steve tries very hard not to blush, but he can feel it creeping up the back of his neck. So what if he is. That’s hardly the point. He busies himself fluffing Bucky’s pillows, pretending he can’t feel how hard Bucky’s gotten against his ass, or the way he’s straining to get his mouth on Steve’s chest.

Steve takes one of Bucky’s wrists between both of his and gives it an affectionate squeeze. “Do you need anything before we get started? More food? Water? A toilet break?”

“I need my tongue in your ass.”

“Bucky.”

“Okay, fine, geez. No. You happy? Lighten up a little, Captain Pouty Face.”

“Really? Captain Pouty Face? That’s the best you can do?”

“Yeah, well, in case you haven’t noticed I’m not exactly playing with a full set of cards right now. I think you oughta cut me some slack.”

Steve rolls his eyes and gets up, stripping methodically out of his uniform and folding it perfunctorily while Bucky openly stares, wolf-whistling appreciatively.

“Now that’s the prettiest pair’a gams I ever did see. Hey, Steve, let me out of these, won’tcha? Just wanna touch you a little. Go on, there’s a doll.” Steve shoots him a look, pushing Bucky’s shirt under his armpits and rubbing his face over his chest, sticking his tongue out to taste the hard, brown nubs of his nipples, drawn up tight against the cold.

“That is NOT what I said,” Bucky grumbles. He tastes like sweat and musk, and Steve wants to bathe in it, just fill up a warm bath with that smell and sink into it. Bucky’s making little hitching grunts, pressing his dick into the hard jut of Steve’s belly. Steve rubs his palms up Bucky’s sides, dropping kisses down over his sternum, down his chest, pausing to stick his tongue into his belly button just to feel him trembling.

He pulls off Bucky’s shoes and socks, then unbuttons his combat trousers like he’s unwrapping a present, carefully, reverently, so as not to tear the paper. When Bucky is naked from the waist down, Steve takes some time to look his fill, taking in the long, lean muscles, the sharp collarbones, the heavy cock and balls. Bucky fidgets, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. “It’s not going to suck itself, you know,” he says weakly.

Steve cocks an eye at him and that’s all the warning Bucky gets before Steve dives down and sucks Bucky down almost to the hilt. Bucky shouts, writhing against the sheets before Steve forces his hips down into the mattress and really goes to town.

Over the years, Steve’s developed a database full of information about what makes Bucky tick. He knows all the dirty tricks, all the ways there are to make James Buchanan Barnes fall apart at the seams like a badly sewn teddy bear. Like how sensitive his balls are, or how he likes the judicious application of teeth on occasion. Steve knows enough to get him coming in about two seconds flat, but he doesn’t. He takes his time, suckling softly on the crown of his dick, pressing kisses down the length of him, building up delicious waves of pleasure.

Bucky is red across his cheekbones and down his neck, hair sticking to his forehead with sweat, mouth open in a sweet pink O. Steve wants to paint him like this, in soft creams and pinks and browns.

When Bucky comes, it’s almost violent. His muscles all seize up and his thighs clamp around Steve’s ears, his back bowed in a beautiful arch. Steve watches him, his eyes lingering on the pale column of his throat, the dark sweep of his lashes.

Steve lays his cheek against Bucky’s stomach, suddenly a little overwhelmed. He’s hard enough to drill nails and his thighs are sloppy with slick.

“Let me take care of you now sugar,” Bucky says once he’s gotten his breath back.

“Not yet,” Steve says stubbornly, pressing soft kisses into the flesh of Bucky’s stomach.

“You’re killing me here.”

Steve feels Bucky start to harden again and quirks an eyebrow at him. “Already?”

“Shut up,” Bucky pants, throwing his head back and moaning.

“What am I going to do with you?”

“I’ve got a few ideas.”

“Really, now,” Steve says, sitting over Bucky’s hips, Bucky’s dick slotting neatly into the valley between his buttocks. “Oh God.”

“Yeah, just like that,” Bucky says, starting up a slow dirty grind against him. Steve throbs between his legs where he’s already swelling open and can’t help fingering himself a little just to check the give of his muscles.

“That’s enough,” Steve hisses, fumbling for Bucky’s dick and sinking back onto it, gasping like a dying fish.

* * *

 

Afterwards, Steve sets Bucky loose for a while and they share some food and water, Steve leaning against the headboard next to Bucky while they talk. Steve is glad to see Bucky’s eyes are clearer and some of tension has sloughed off him.

“You ever think about what you wanna do once this is all over?” Steve asks, resting his head against Bucky’s shoulder and threading their fingers together.

“Doesn’t matter what I want.”

“Of course it matters.” 

“What do you want me to say, Steve?” Bucky snaps. “That I want to retire with you to a house with a white picket fence and two point five kids? What good would that do anyone?”

“What if that’s what I want to?”

Bucky snorts. “Please. You’ve never been content with that kind of life. You’ve always wanted more. And what kinda scumbag would I be to deny you that?”

“I could pretend,” Steve says desperately. “Go to work during the day and come back home to you in the afternoon. No one would have to know.”

“I won’t be your dirty little secret, Steve.”

“So is that it then? You’re not even willing to fight for us?”

“I’m tired of fighting,” Bucky says, and he looks it.

“I can’t talk about this,” says Steve, getting up and pulling his clothes back on. He pauses by the door. “I’d choose you, by the way. If you asked. Being a Captain, having a job: I can live without that. I’m not so sure I can live without you.”

In the morning, they go about their business as usual, but it’s like a wall has gone up between them over night. Then a few days later Bucky falls from a train and Steve’s alone and unable even to drink himself into a stupor. Nothing’s ever felt like this, hurt so much, hurt right down to his _soul_.

So he crashes a HYDRA bomber into the Arctic and closes his eyes and goes to sleep for a very long time. When he wakes up 70 years later the world has changed, but Bucky’s death still hurts like it happened yesterday. Fury presses his bonding collar, salvaged by SHIELD from his belongings and kept a secret from the press and the world, into his hands, telling him that if he wants, he can come out as what he really is: an omega. The world is different now, better in a lot of ways. There are omegas in the armed forces, in the medical field, in real paying jobs where no one gets their ass pinched by the boss. Steve meets Tony Stark, omega CEO and billionaire, one of the most annoying people on the face of the planet, but he can respect him for what he’s managed to build.

In the end, Steve decides not to go public about his gender. That part of his life feels private, Bucky’s death still too raw and personal. He lets it scab over like a wound, buries it down deep. And then he joins the Avengers and saves the world all over again.


End file.
